Day 6

CAPTAIN'S LOG:

Oh my.  Where to start, y'all.  We've had adventures...

First, I assume you'll be happy to know that with a friend's help, I've managed to properly add the "follow by email" link to the right-hand side bar (thanks Phern!). Enjoy!

We extended our stay here in Springdale, adjacent to Zion National Park in Utah, by one day because it's so AWESOME!!! Really, if you've not yet visited Zion Park, you must. It's just beautiful here. And you can find nice accomodations and yummy food (that's pretty cheap) too. Nuff said.

So, when last we left our heroines (Amy, Harper, and me) we were having a blast at Disneyland. From there we drove to Las Vegas to overnight before driving to Zion. Which brings us to:

ADVENTURE #1: Amy loses cell phone.

After enjoying the wave pool and lazy river at the Mandalay Bay Resort last Saturday morning and afternoon (I loves me a lazy river, by the way -- so fun!) we showered, packed our stuff, checked out, loaded our stuff into Sweet Ride (I've officially named my new car "Sweet Ride") and were fixing to drive off when Amy notices that she doesn't have her cell phone. Bummer. She goes back into the hotel, begs, borrows, and steals to gain access to our room and... the phone's not there. She comes back to the car, which is still parked near the front lobby, and I suggest that she check the pool -- "terrific idea" she says and dashes back to the pools where she has interesting experiences with "Find My iPhone," GPS imagry of the pool laundry room, and various staff who successfully locate her phone (under about 3,000 used pool towels -- literally) then facilitate the accidental deletion of ALL of her personal information from the phone. Egad. Which brings me to...

ADVENTURE #2: Sweet Ride won't start.

Yup, my sweet ride had a boo boo. Minutes after Amy left the car for misadventures searching for her phone, I couldn't get Sweet Ride to turn over. As the car is basically a computer on wheels, I initially assumed that I had pressed the wrong button (or had forgotten to press one, or some bullshit like that). But the car became less and less responsive each time I turned the key. It seemed pretty obvious that the battery was dying/dead. Poor Harper was in her seat and ready to go and her mom's were dawdling with the darker aspects of technology.

I initially contacted the free roadside assistance I got when I bought Sweet Ride for a jump start. Then I thought better of it. First, it was quickly turning to Saturday evening at one of Vegas' more popular resort hotels and I was concerned that help would have a hard time reaching me once the parking area started to fill up. Second, and more importantly, I felt it was likely the valet service that parked the car likely left a light on in the car or something, and drained the battery -- so I figured it was the least the hotel could do to jump the car. When Amy briefly returned to the car (before going to the pool to search under towels for her phone) she stayed with Harper while I hit the valet manager up for a jump. He was emphatic that his crew did not cause the battery drain (after all, they drove the car to the hotel entrance, didn't they? if a member of his crew had jumped the car beforehand, he would have been told, etc.). Fine buddy. How about a jump?

So they bring their utility van around to jump start my car (and they were nice -- I shouldn't be a grouch). Guess what? The jumper cables were not in the van. Where might they have gone? I won't get into that... The manager and his colleague were scratching their heads about what to do next. Scratching their heads. It never occured to them to ask ME if I had jumper cables. Nope. Which brings me to a vignette that I like to call...

IF YOU'VE GOT A VAGINA -- I'm sorry Aunt Irma. My Aunt Irma admonished me two days before I left the City  to keep this blog "clean." This is a necessary evil, Aunt Irma...

It never occured to either of the fellows attempting to jump my car to ask me if I had jumper cables because they assumed, correctly, that I have a vagina. Next, they incorrectly assumed that I therefore don't have the damned sense to own jumper cables. Friends, I'm not the smartest peanut in the tin, but I do know that having a vagina and possessing jumper cables are mutually exclusive. Yet and still, I digress...

So I said to the valet manager "would you like to use MY jumper cables?" and he looks at me with an exasperated expression, which made me feel badly for him (really), and said "If you'd like this to go quickly..." Which is what I wanted, so I fetched said cables and fully two hours after we checked out of the hotel we were rolling our asses down I-15 towards Zion. Boy howdy.

EXHIBIT B: The bidet in out hotel bathroom.

Soon after arriving at our fabulous hotel digs in Springdale we discovered a bidet in the bathroom!  Here's a pic:

Which brings us to our THIRD adventure on that Saturday:

ADVENTURE #3: Frisky bidet.

I was immediately curious about that bidet. So I turned a few knobs to see if I could get it to work and voila! A stream of water shot about three feet straight up out of the gadjet, wetting the floor. I shut off the knobs and immediately left the bathroom. Yup, the thing frightened me. But I was still very, very curious about that bidet... About 30 minutes later I got my gumption back and went into the bathroom and figured out how to control the "jet stream." I plopped myself on the thing and immediately started giggling. Harper heard me giggling and wanted to try the bidet out.  I plopped her on there and she loved it! That child is in touch with her European roots...

Later, Amy tried to get the bidet going for Harper (nothing wrong with the child staying clean) and because she's been to Europe several times I assumed she knew how to make it work correctly, so I didn't show her how to "ride" the controls. Long story longer, the thing squirted her in the head!! I had to hide in the hallway to while I cracked up. OMG. I got back into the bathroom and tried to show her how to turn the water stream on slowly, but Amy wasn't paying attention. She had gone off to dry off her hair. Oy, mama.

The last adventure I have to report happened this very evening while we were at dinner in Springdale. When you're in the town you're literally surrounded by absolutely beautiful red peaks and cliffs. It's just stunning. Tonight, a very special sunset played off this backdrop with really incredible results. Apparently, sunsets like this one happen only every several years here.

In the space of just a few seconds, the view from the restaurant changed from this:

... to this:

It was after 7pm and it looked like t was 9 or 10 in the morning because the cliffs were so bright!! Amy and everyone else in the restaurant got up to take pictures of this event, which lasted only 2-3 minutes. The street outside the restaurant filled up with people watching and taking pictures too. All of a sudden we were all staring at the same thing and having this intense experience. Really awesome. It felt to me (and I'm not a religious gal) as if God had picked us all up by the scruff of our necks and shouted "Hey!" That's all. Just "Hey!"

That's a good note to end on. Here are some pix:

Foolish squirrels!

At the Emerald Pools in Zion.

Under a waterfall (Amy took this great pic).

Cowbutch! 

(The black straps on my shoulders are suspenders, which I was wearing with shorts -- so I pretty much looked like I was wearing lederhosen.)

Bambi.

My little buckeroo.

Saturday morning in Vegas, before our misadventures began. If I knew then what I know now...